News Release

Cow Immune System Inspires Potential New Therapies

New TSRI Study Could Help People with Growth Disorders and Other Conditions

LA JOLLA, CA – February 6, 2015 – To help people with hormone deficiencies, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed a potential new therapy based on an unlikely model: immune molecules from cows.

Their research, published recently in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that human hormones and antibodies can be fused together—mimicking long, stalk-like cow antibodies.

The new study, whose senior authors were Peter Schultz, the Scripps Family Chair Professor at TSRI, and Feng Wang, a principal investigator at the California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr), could also provide the foundation for treatments for a range of other diseases.

“We were inspired by this unique structure found in nature, and we assembled an antibody that might one day benefit humans,” said TSRI Research Associate Tao Liu, co-first author of the new study with Yong Zhang at Calibr.

Many people need injections of human growth hormone (hGH) to combat conditions such as Turner syndrome (which causes short stature in females), low birth weight and other hormone deficiencies. Unfortunately, the body degrades hGH quickly, sometimes within 30 minutes.

Antibodies, however, can last for weeks in the body. In the new study, the researchers drew inspiration from a bovine antibody study published by TSRI scientists in 2013. The bovine antibody has an unusual structure—a round base with a long amino-acid “stalk” pointing out. On the top of the stalk is a “knob region” that presumably binds to pathogens.

The researchers wondered whether they could switch the knob region with DNA from a human hormone, such as hGH. To test this theory, they used recombinant DNA technology to fuse hGH to a coiled version of the bovine antibody’s stalks.

This fusion was stable and maintained the function of hGH, so they next tried making an antibody-hormone molecule without any cow DNA, so that the molecules might someday be applied in human therapy. They used the humanized anti-cancer antibody Herceptin® as the antibody base in the new treatment.

The researchers then tested their antibody-hGH molecule in rat models. They found that hGH-deficient rats that received the treatment grew normally. In fact, the treated rats only needed injections two times a week to grow, compared with daily injections for rats given hGH without the antibody base.

“It acts just like the normal growth hormone,” said Liu. “This means the treatment might only need to be injected once a week or even once a month in humans. It would be so much easier for patients.”

To further test their method, the researchers attached Herceptin® to leptin, a hormone that regulates body weight. They showed that the antibody-leptin molecule was just as effective in mice as natural leptin—and it didn’t have to be injected as often. Subsequent experiments showed no harmful side effects from the treatments.

The research team is working to optimize the treatment for potential use in humans, and Liu hopes the method could someday deliver longer-lasting doses of hGH—or maybe even insulin to treat type 2 diabetes—to patients in need.

The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is one of the world's largest independent, not-for-profit organizations focusing on research in the biomedical sciences. TSRI is internationally recognized for its contributions to science and health, including its role in laying the foundation for new treatments for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, and other diseases. An institution that evolved from the Scripps Metabolic Clinic founded by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps in 1924, the institute now employs more than 2,500 people on its campuses in La Jolla, CA, and Jupiter, FL, where its renowned scientists—including two Nobel laureates and 20 members of the National Academy of Science, Engineering or Medicine—work toward their next discoveries. The institute's graduate program, which awards PhD degrees in biology and chemistry, ranks among the top ten of its kind in the nation. For more information, see www.scripps.edu.

The team fused together two molecules to mimic long stalk-like cow antibodies and create a potential foundation to treat growth disorders and other diseases. Show here are growth plates from models treated with (bottom) or without (top) the designer antibody.